Story: Deer and deer farming

Page 6 – Breeding

Mating

Deer mate in autumn. If calves are weaned before mating,
at three to four months old, there are only a few weeks for
hinds to recover some of the body weight lost during
lactation before they mate again. This may affect their
conception rate – hinds with a body condition score (BCS) of
less than 3 will conceive about five days later than hinds
with a BCS over 4. The earlier hinds mate the better, so they
should be fed well before mating. After mating, pregnant
hinds can be fed to just maintain body weight – and then
given supplementary feed just before giving birth.

Effect of day length

As with food intake, the reproductive cycle in deer is
extremely seasonal and governed by day length. Shorter days
after Christmas are the cue to stags and hinds that the
breeding season is approaching. Hinds start ovulation each
year towards the end of March and most conception occurs in
the first half of April. Groups of 40–60 hinds are grazed
together and mated with a single stag. For proven mature red
stags, the ratio may be 100 hinds to one stag. Stags should
be removed by 10 May to avoid the birth of late fawns
(calves). Pregnancy can now be diagnosed by ultrasound
scanning.

Fawn losses

Fawn losses from birth to weaning can be high for
intensively farmed deer. Often 6–10% of calves born to adult
hinds and 12% born to yearling hinds are lost. The most
common causes are starvation, misadventure and dystocia
(large calves causing a difficult birth).

To minimise calf loss, farmers should have calf-proof
fences to keep the newborn animals in the paddocks where they
were born. They should also provide space and shelter for the
calving hinds, keeping them away from any possible
disturbance.

Crossbreeding

Imported European red deer are much larger than New
Zealand red deer. If the two are crossbred it results in
faster growing progeny, and larger crossbred breeding hinds.
It is common to use a wapiti/red deer bull to mate with the
farmed red hinds. The crossbred progeny are ready for
slaughter earlier, so the meat often commands a high price in
the northern-hemisphere autumn market. On the other hand,
crossbreds are more costly to rear – they need almost three
times as much pasture as red deer to maximise weight
gain.